Playlist: Gary Hilton

What’s the best promo you’ve seen recently and why?

As we now live in this huge ocean of content it’s getting harder and harder to actually have something jump out at you. It’s not only a business challenge to make something refreshing, it’s also frustrating that there’s nothing floating my own, personal boat.

GAS Music recently made a promo for one of the acts on the label and decided to assign zero budget and set ourselves a simple challenge to make a film from publicly available clips. This we did, and we’re quite pleased with the outcome.

But that is not the best thing I’ve seen recently (as much as I’d like to blow my own trumpet!). The best promo I’ve seen recently is by an unknown artist called Falling Ghost for a track called Stay With Me Tonight. A confident, yet calm chap shared a ‘simple promo’ he had made: green screen, locked off camera, full face of the song delivery, black background, simple grade – the killer effect being to use split screen to segment, quarter, half and then fully cover the singers face with the features of other faces. Almost an up to date version of Godley & Cremes Cry for a fraction of the cost.

Why is this so good – because it’s so simple, so effective and I wish we had thought of the creative idea!

What’s the first promo you remember being impressed by?

As a very young boy I remember Queen being number one with Bohemian Rhapsody and the promo being, in my simple mind, an obvious play on my favourite toy the kaleidoscope! Seeing the four heads on screen, the scary lighting and the telling of this poor boy’s story had me awestruck!

A few years later, when my musical interests started to develop, I remember watching ‘this man’ walk down some steps in a huge theatre whilst, what I thought was a very ill Frank Sinatra, sang the opening lines of My Way! This bloke had brilliant hair, a fabulous sneer and I almost exploded with fear and excitement as I thought I heard him sing (having now realised it wasn’t an ill Frank Sinatra) the words: “you cunt I’m not a queer...” and then these guitars started pounding: “...regrets, I’ve had a few…”. Sid Vicious sings My Way.

And what’s your all-time favourite music video?

Tough question, so best to work through the ones which immediately spring to mind for two reasons; one, because I think they look great and two, they are great songs which, in my humble opinion, still stand up today:

Sabotage by The Beastie Boys; Fun, energy lads being lads but being cool at not being cool!

Hurt by Johnny Cash; The performance. Johnny Cash taking someone else’s song and making it his own. The visuals and the lyric being truly symbolic of his life and his death – a living eulogy.

Kansas by The Wolfgang Press; A fabulous, hidden gem. I remember discovering this on an early nineties ‘music TV show’ (the album at the time – Bird Wood Cage is great) with Badly Drawn Boy and being thrilled musically and visually. The use of masks never ceases to amaze me and the simple techniques of a wobbly camera and a parallel cut, synced to a little bit of feedback – genius!

True Faith by New Order; Odd, angular and majestic, wonderful choreography and a great anthem

What other directors/artists do you look to for inspirational?

We oscillate back and forth and inspiration comes from many, different places. For now, Jonathan Glazer, Anton Corbijn, Chris Cunningham and [Talking Heads frontman] David Byrne capture several minds full of inspiration just by the writing of their names.

Massive Attack are always on the money visually and Yoann Lemoine created a great promo for Harry Stiles last year.

What are you listening to at the moment?

I’m still listening to Trouble Will Find Me by The National as a well-liked long player, also Interpol – and yes, I am aware of the paths these two acts have threaded together. I’ve also revisited with much joy Never Mind The Bollocks by The Sex Pistols for two reason; firstly, it still comes alive like no other album ever has before or since, and secondly, we have the honour of creating the film score and audio package for the upcoming feature film Burn Punk by Joe Corre, son of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood.

What’s your favourite bit of tech, whether for professional or personal use?

My automatic guitar tuner!

What artist(s) would you most like to work with and why?

David Byrne; hugely influential from his first arrival on the scene 40 years ago, right up to today. And Trent Reznor [of Nine Inch Nails], who, again, is always pushing boundaries and a leaning to the dark side.

How do you feel the promo industry has changed since you started in it?

The biggest change for us is that it’s now common practice that every piece of audio created for an artist has to have a video, and this practice has been adopted absent of any simple business logic: what are we doing?/why are we doing it?/how are we doing it?

Where do you see the music video industry being in five years’ time?

I’m hopeful of a slowing down in homogenised, beautifully-shot-yet-devoid-of-character-and-narrative videos, and a return to creatives, artists, labels and production houses taking a risk. Also, trying to manage and deliver more meaningful budgets – cost and value for money is becoming more and more a focus and hopefully this will be a benefit to the still-growing creative sector and the buoyant music sector; noting we are consuming more music than ever before.

Tell us one thing about yourself that most people won’t know…

I was arrested for singing whilst re-creating The Beatles’ famous rooftop show performing Don’t Let Me Down on the Apple Corp Saville Row. Me and my band we not on a rooftop in London but a similar set up in our home town! Whilst we pleased the crowd, not everybody was in approval.